Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Schreiber, my name is Ralph Goodale. I'm a member of Parliament from Saskatchewan. I'm substituting today for my Liberal colleague Robert Thibault, who is, unfortunately, storm-stayed by the bad weather in Atlantic Canada.
Today, with the benefit of all your papers, we hope we will be able to pursue the issues that are before this committee. I have just one question to begin with, Mr. Schreiber, to do with the issue you just raised about Airbus, and that is the following.
Airbus and the German government obviously had a deep interest in getting the Canadian contract. I'd like to ask you this. Did Airbus authorize any payments to be made to facilitate the contract? If so, to whom were those payments to be made? When were they made? How much were they? And were these amounts deductible as expenses on the Airbus side?